


The Headless Waltz

by Numisma (InTheTatras)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Gen, Horror, Songfic, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-30
Updated: 2004-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 21:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4278375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTheTatras/pseuds/Numisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a songfic for the song of the same title by Voltaire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Headless Waltz

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to the song [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uYcP6YmDpc)!

Enough dreaming.

Enough rehearsals.

The starkness of the sweeping lands was waiting. The winds, her winds, sang bittersweet ballads of suppressed woes, gusts of warm air eddying and swathing across the grassy expanses and carrying along the invitations in tremulous numbers.

The cream and crimson fan, her weapon, her tool, her _soul_ , was ready to take on the tough task that still lay ahead. The task she’d been meaning to fulfill for the longest time.

Time.

Time was slowly ticking away in heartbeats, and the sooner she began fulfilling her greatest desire, bringing about what nearly all those she knew, fiend and friend alike, seemed to yearn or strive for, the better.

Her target, her guest of honor. He was keeping her waiting. Most likely, pulling himself together and reassembling his fleshy form of miscellaneous youkai remnants, from creatures he had absorbed since the first dawn he had come to exist.

The skies grew misty and overclouded with darkness and anticipation. The stars themselves were anxious spectators; at first there were none, and then slowly they trickled into view in small clusters, awaiting the coming promised attraction.

Bare feet stood firmly in place as Kagura whispered promises to the article of cloth and onyx youkai bone, her heavy kimono crisp and unsullied as it hugged her form. She stared at the building before her.

_Patience. Have patience. Soon._

The stench that disgusted her so, despite its shared quality with herself, shifted within the fortress.

Bowing her head, she kissed her instrument of manipulation, its handle firmly clasped in shaky yet indignant and proud fingers.

_Time to end this age of decadence. I am merely a puppet, a caged creature, if I cannot even perform this final dance for him._

A slight, pale whisper of a figure materialized near the fortress entrance, slowly padding away to some unknown destination, taking no notice of the wind youkai who stood far off in silent contemplation and reflection.

Almost time.

No more dreams of unfulfilled wishes.

No more wishful enactments of the wickedness that was to come, and no more of the wickedness that had created her.

_Leave the sanctuary, and bring about what must come of this new, and final, dance._

With blood blisters for eyes, she centered them upon her meantime target, an outstretched limb ready to take command of her wind at the snap of her fan.

The fan opened at a silent signal.

“Ryuuja no Mai.”

With a rapturous sweep and a cocky, passing smirk, a series of twisting cyclones formed from the upper limits of the open expanse of sky, ravenous disturbances that hungered for destruction of the fortress before the wind sorceress. Howls and outcries thrummed through the air, but not in protest. Within moments, the fortress was engulfed by the tempests that swirled and oozed with unresolved vehemence and contempt that only the figure Kagura could exude.

As the destruction of the fortress came about, she laughed, watching as the building was leveled. With a flick of her wrist, she sent forth more cyclones of destructive intent and ushered the airborne debris off in outward directions, leaving more room for her wind manipulations to noisily rend and shred.

At long last, the wind user set her controlled currents at ease and relinquished her hold on them, allowing the rubble to settle. She clicked her fan closed, the instrument seething with desire for its last dance to begin.

A scattering of dust and debris floated in the center of what was once a grand fortress, thickly clouded yet slowly dissipating, and soon a tall and brooding figure stood and made his presence known and visible.

Stepping forward through the clutter of remains, the clutter of what once formed his abode, Naraku slowly made his way beyond the seemingly steaming pile of shrapnel, his expression contorted into one filled with hatred and a loss of control.

Before he could enter into too close of a proximity to his mutinous detachment, he paused and gasped, as he felt the connection to her no longer attainable. The encasement which had held his incarnations’ hearts was no longer whole, and his grasp now uneventful. Murderous intentions bled into his eyes, and he sneered at the bitch who had dared take such actions.

“Kagura.”

His gravelly voice was engorged with bloodthirst for her, his beady eyes narrowing.

“How dare you….”

“Naraku, you no-good, filthy coward. I’ve a special dance, just for you,” she spoke with the overwhelming confidence she had only previously dreamt of possessing. “Watch, or at least, as long as you can.”

And so her recital for Daddy Dearest began, and the lands trembled in anguish with the opening of her fan.

“Shukyuu no Mai.”

> As above, so below, place your bets  
> Which way the head will roll  
> Made in your image we are at least  
> As twisted and mean as thee  
> ‘Fore your eyes, what a curious sight  
> Your children have turned on you  
> And you say, you don’t sleep well at night  
> Well, we’ll take care of that for you  
> Belle Marie Antionette  
> “Love the pearls!”  
> They’ll make a great tourniquet  
> Never did as you should and you claim  
> It was all for our very own good  
> ‘Twas a lie, a magnificent lie  
> Now, your subjects have turned on you  
> And you claim you had lots on your mind  
> Well, we’ll take care of that for you  
> 

The skies grew dark crimson with the tumultuous scrapings of the wind as it gathered in powerful scythe-like blades, disembodied moans crying out as if in torturous pain from the sorceress’s ministrations and manipulations. A grand series of waves of wind razors crashed and rumbled toward the targeted hanyou, Naraku, traversing the airy expanses from all sides but the front.

Naraku, still recovering from his weakness in form, only grew angrier. Who was this incorrigible wind wench who thought she could destroy _him_ , even now?

“Bitch.”

Kagura smiled then, a smile brimming with madness and the insatiable desire to slaughter and demolish all who stood in her path.

“Off with your head. You are no longer my master.”

> Get that damn thing off [his] neck  
> I’m the head of the board now I’m bored of [his] head  
> Sharpen up the blade, boys, what are you waiting for?  
> Here’s where we all get ahead!  
> Wipe that damn smile off your face  
> Or we’ll lop it off clean with our new guillotine  
> Sharpen up the blade, boys, what are you waiting for?  
> Here’s where we all get ahead!  
> (Bells are now tolling, soon heads will be rolling)

With the winds at her command, at her beck and call, under her will, Kagura raised her arm and adeptly turned the fan toward herself, a silent order to the rumbling currents that rushed toward her most heated object of hatred.

The figure who once controlled her with fear and intimidation was soon engulfed from all directions with the shredding and massacre that could only be spouted forth by such forcefully driven tempests and currents all colliding and converging in an apex almost rivaling the same one from when he as Onigumo had allowed hordes of youkai to consume his useless form more than fifty years earlier.

Any attempt at outcries from his throat were quickly drowned out by the roaring and droning that consumed him, and even further when his head became completely and violently severed from the remainder of his body, the swirling and maliciously dancing winds carrying it upward and forward until Kagura held out her empty hand in front of her body and flicked the wrist of her fan-wielding hand.

> All my troubles, all my pain  
> Stems from this thing that you call a “brain”  
> Be my guest, sever me from the source  
> Of all my agony  
> What a shame, I’ve forgotten my name  
> Without the use of my brain  
> “My, bet I’ll sleep well tonight!”  
> Without this head of mine

> Get this damn thing off my neck  
> I’m the head of the board now I’m bored of my head  
> Sharpen up the blade, boys, what are you waiting for?  
> Here’s where we all get ahead!  
> Wipe that damn smile off your face  
> Or we’ll lop it off clean with our new guillotine  
> Sharpen up the blade, boys, what are you waiting for?  
> Here’s where we all get ahead!  
> (Bells are now tolling, soon heads will be rolling)

She ordered the winds to settle and cease in their viciousness, and they quickly obeyed with the snapping close of her fan.

The winds and the sky still trembled in anguish and grew cool and languid with the scent of Naraku’s blood that poured from his decapitated head. The head itself fell from a great height and only barely missed the ground due to the long black tresses becoming snagged in the demoness’s outstretched fingers. It hung there from her hand, and she gripped the hair firmly with contempt and raised her arm so that Naraku’s face became aligned with hers.

“You devious, insufferable bastard,” she seethed out, her eyes narrowing. The face’s features lit up with the little life still left in both parts of his body, and the eyes opened to glare at the woman who dared speak to him in such a manner.

Before his headless body could amble far, its arms waving about in search of the missing head, Kagura put her fan at complete ease and pulled a pale feather from the binding in her hair, quickly ushering forth her giant feather-craft suited for distance travel. Within moments she was afloat in the skies, carrying the despicable head of Naraku for a short distance before gripping it by his long glossy and tangled locks and swingingly catapulting it with a grunt off into the far distance, watching it shoot off to some unknown destination.

And so, she left to go wherever the winds might take her, her heart now finally her own.

Free. Finally free.

The wandering body stumbled and fell upon the ground, barely able to move. A young boy dressed in green and black taijiya garb walked by and glanced at the fallen figure for a moment.

> Please, Sir, for me, Sir  
> Won’t you see if you see, Sir?  
> Oh dear, I dread  
> I seem to have lost my head  
> I think I left it about  
> It fell to the ground  
> And I kicked it around  
> Has anyone seen, no need to be mean,  
> My bloody, fat, ugly head?

The small figure paused in reflection, his mind blank and void of emotion yet still pondering the circumstances that presented themselves to him, before turning and walking off. There was one image that would not leave his mind, the image of a face, of a young woman’s troubled face, and while he knew nothing of his past, or has repressed it so far that he might never be able to retrieve anything back, the image of her face spoke to him.

Perhaps he ought to go find her. And so Kohaku left in search of that nameless woman.

The small white figure of nothingness reappeared and stopped by her former master’s body, mirror in hand, her head cocked and a quizzical look upon her normally expressionless visage.

> Please, Miss, for me, Sis  
> Won’t you see if you see, Sis  
> It’s got black hair  
> And it’s kickin’ about in the square  
> I’m really not totally sure but  
> I think that it might have rolled into the sewer.  
> Has anyone seen, no need to be mean,  
> My bloody, fat, ugly head?

With utmost passivity, Kanna’s eyes took in the events of what had happened. Oh well. Whatever was meant to happen, would happen.

-

Kagura awoke with a jolt, feeling her heart squeezing in pain, a fresh coat of sweat covering her exposed skin and her breathing ragged and heavy. Looking about at her surroundings, she froze with a twinge of sadness, her throat tight.

In dreams, she had plotted it all.

In dreams, she had escaped his observance.

And she had killed him. But only in her dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:
> 
> Ryuuja no Mai: Dance of the Dragon Snakes
> 
> Shukyuu no Mai: Dance of Decapitation
> 
> shukyuu literally means the decapitated head of an enemy


End file.
